A Winter's Tale
by fanfic n00b
Summary: In the wake of the first war, Severus runs an errand for Dumbledore and encounters someone he did not expect to see.


As 1981 draws to a dark, wintry close, and cheerful pop songs jangle out of pub doors when Muggle patrons break from their Christmas shopping to drink a pint, Severus glides along the street in his traveling cloak, running an errand for Dumbledore. Afternoon hesitates on the edge of premature nightfall. The bright red telephone booths almost glow, lurid, like candy apples slick with sticky sugar, in the grey London streets. The double-decker buses, too, are this color – this particular red.

But it's not the oxidized red of blood, nor the copper red of Lily's hair. The latter features heavily in his thoughts these days.

This will be his lost year. He will take up the teaching post at Hogwarts next fall. In the meantime, Dumbledore keeps him busy with little assignments, perhaps worried that Severus will go back on his word, will relapse, now that Lily – the reason for his defection – is dead.

If Dumbledore thinks that, he's mistaken.

Severus slips into the Leaky Cauldron and, unnoticed by the patrons, sweeps out the back door and taps the sequence of bricks that grant him passage onto Diagon Alley. The familiar street, newly packed with people after the fall of the Dark Lord, chatters with celebration, renewed hope, reunited friends. Enchanted golden bells jingle, floating mid-air, outside the shops, and mistletoe hangs dangerously over too many doorways. Window displays feature fat Father Christmases and leaping reindeer. Newspapers and posters still bear large-type headlines about The Boy Who Lived.

For most of the wizarding world, this Christmas will be a mercy – an unexpected, happy reprieve after years of mounting horror. But for Severus, this festive tableau is littered with ironies.

Lily Evans died four weeks ago.

Remorse and grief have engaged his entire being, moreso than NEWT Potions or espionage or even his months as a double-agent ever did. It keeps him awake at night. Loss, he has learned, is an intellectual labor as well as an animal, physical one. His whole body is pulsing with love for her, and with regrets about her, and with a potent cocktail of neurochemicals released by his mourning brain as it struggles to heal itself. The world feels dull, but his thoughts feel sharp and lingering, like tea with too much lemon in it.

At first, slumped in that chair in Dumbledore's office, the best thing he could think to give her was his death. But that, he realized, was insufficient, unworthy. The better thing to give her is his ___life_. So he has given it to her, promised it to her, as silently as he did solemnly. He will live for her, to carry out her dying wish, and that will be all. He will be the solo monk in the Holy Order of Lily Evans.

Two pieces of her remain. First, her son. Second, the part of her that lives in Severus himself - an ember that survives despite years of estrangement and betrayal - as integral to him as a lung or a finger. She had been part of him ever since they were children, magical and weird together, jumping off the roof of her house to see how far they could fly. She had given him joy, and he had given her answers. Her gifts were beautiful to him, and his to her. This will be his sustenance now, his holy relic: the memory of their mutual childhood love. It runs through him, creeping through capillaries, cloaking him in something stronger than a Patronus and more permanent than the Dark Mark that has faded on his arm.

Dumbledore's errand takes Severus to Gringott's. The queue is long, perhaps because so many people are returning from hiding in the wake of the war. Then again, it may be because so many former supporters of the Dark Lord are going ___into_ hiding now. Or emptying their vaults and going abroad.

Severus did not know the identity of every Death Eater, but as he glances at the wizards and witches waiting in the queue, he develops a few theories. Body language is the biggest giveaway. Those who cross their arms or point their toes inward – those people who do not partake of the new atmosphere of friendly celebration, in other words – were very likely on the Dark Lord's side. Honestly, one doesn't have to use Legilimency to pick them out.

He folds his hands like a penitent and takes his place at the back of the queue.

Within seconds, Narcissa Malfoy joins him in line, holding her small son, a closed expression on her starkly beautiful face. Severus has already decided to pretend not to recognize her when she speaks softly to him, barely above a whisper.

"I heard that your case did not go to trial," she says.

He hesitates. "No. I have been... fortunate." He's certainly not going to confirm that Dumbledore gave evidence on his behalf. Not here, in a crowded bank lobby, anyway.

The baby whimpers and she soothes him, adjusting his small body against her. Severus has never seen Draco before. The baby resembles Lucius - fair hair, pointy chin.

The queue moves slowly, wizards shuffling forward with their arms full of parcels.

Severus knows that Lucius has been questioned, and that he may be under questioning again right now. And he guesses this is why Narcissa looks vaguely harried now, searching for something in both pockets of her robes.

Have the Malfoys claimed to have been under the Imperius curse, like so many others? Will Lucius rely on his network of well-placed allies, his wealth?

They do not owe one another answers. Although Severus once counted Lucius and Narcissa as allies, they aren't now, and they're not close friends, either. They would all do well not to associate publicly with one another until the new, post-war world resolves itself.

So it takes Severus by surprise when Narcissa leans close and asks, "Will you take him for a moment?"

He turns slowly toward her, face blank.

"Please. I can't reach my vault key," she says.

Before he can protest, she's holding the baby out to him, and he accepts the boy uncertainly, jerkily, as if he's a bomb that could go off at any second.

Severus has never held a baby before. It's odd, he decides. Uncomfortable. A warm, twitching weight with a will of his own. Not like the smiling, docile babies in wizard portraits at school. Not like the ugly kittens Lily rescued one summer in Spinner's End. Lily's son must be this size, he thinks. Living in some Muggle household with loathsome Petunia.

Draco looks up at Severus with pale eyes that seem ludicrously older, as if this is not a baby at all, but some judgmental old man reincarnated in baby form. Draco is ___reading_ him, he realizes. Figuring him out. For some reason, this disarms Severus far more than the stupid pop songs and mistletoe. The boy's tiny fingers dig into his shoulder. His nails are surprisingly sharp.

They reach the front of the queue, and Severus allows Narcissa to go ahead of him.

She takes her son back into her arms with a haughty, though half-grateful, expression. This is maybe the most intimate exchange she and Severus have ever shared. And it may be the closest thing to domesticity that Severus will ever experience.

He watches her carry Draco to the end of the row of goblins. A mother and child. Not so very different from the mother and child he destroyed when he gave that prophecy to the Dark Lord. His remorse flares silently behind his impassive face and he looks away from the pair of them. When he turns around again, they are gone.

They neither see nor speak to each other again for nearly ten years.


End file.
